Cardiorespiratory fitness and the flexible modulation of cognitive control in preadolescent children

  • Authors:
  • Matthew B. Pontifex;Lauren B. Raine;Christopher R. Johnson;Laura Chaddock;Michelle W. Voss;Neal J. Cohen;Arthur F. Kramer;Charles H. Hillman

  • Affiliations:
  • -;-;-;-;-;-;-;-

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

The influence of cardiorespiratory fitness on the modulation of cognitive control was assessed in preadolescent children separated into higher-and lower-fit groups. Participants completed compatible and incompatible stimulus-response conditions of a modified flanker task, consisting of congruent and incongruent arrays, while ERPs and task performance were concurrently measured. Findings revealed decreased response accuracy for lower-relative to higher-fit participants with a selectively larger deficit in response to the incompatible stimulus-response condition, requiring the greatest amount of cognitive control. In contrast, higher-fit participants maintained response accuracy across stimulus-response compatibility conditions. Neuroelectric measures indicated that higher-fit, relative to lower-fit, participants exhibited global increases in P3 amplitude and shorter P3 latency, as well as greater modulation of P3 amplitude between the compatible and incompatible stimulus-response conditions. Similarly, higher-fit participants exhibited smaller error-related negativity (ERN) amplitudes in the compatible condition, and greater modulation of the ERN between the compatible and incompatible conditions, relative to lower-fit participants who exhibited large ERN amplitudes across both conditions. These findings suggest that lower-fit children may have more difficulty than higher-fit children in the flexible modulation of cognitive control processes to meet task demands.